St Hans Extreme 23-5-13, 10k\500+m : 1st in 40.05
(picture Erik Erikkson\Lunds OK - more here...)
A hard race held on a Thurs evening round St Hans backar in Lund, site of an old rubbish tip long since covered with large artificial hills - practically the only good sized ones nearby, as can be demonstrated by the view from the topmost - covered in grass and woodland. It's been a nice but infrequent training destination over the past few months due to injury problems.
Although the evening itself was warm (but not too warm, 12-14C) and sunny, the days preceding the race had seen heavy rain, making the course very muddy and slippery. I thus decided to run in short 5mm cross spikes, due to the minimal tarmac sections of the route - despite these being harder on the ankles than well-cushioned trainers.
The course itself was very difficult. It reminded me of the old days of West Yorkshire league cross, the Northerns and training round Bramley Fall in Leeds, except all of those had flat, recovery (football pitch) sections - this was simply unremitting hills, with little space to catch a breath. Not quite as hard I think as Xtreme Running Aarhus...
I had a less-than-ideal preparation for the race, having to start work at 6.30am and spending much of the day until 5 on my feet in the cleanroom. As such, by the time of the race start at 19.00 I was very tired - despite some caffeinated help. My aim for the race was thus to take it as training and run around 40min pace.
The first 2 laps went fairly well, run in around 9-10min\2.5k lap. It was quite tricky with the orienteering controls - I probably lost 3-5s on each, having to stop and stamp; should do some more orienteering to practice! Except for slightly missing the start 'gun', I'd led from the front and built up a lead of a few minutes. On the third lap, tiredness plus stomach cramps (something I suffer from time to time) hit. A brief 'pitstop' into the bushes was needed to set things right again - always wise to bring toilet paper on any run, even races...
Feeling a bit better, I put on a bit of gas for the remainder of the 3rd lap and took the 4th fairly gently, being around 2 min ahead - better to sacrifice a bit of time than to have the same problems and DNF.
The most worrying thing about the race was the sound made by my ankles on going up some of the hills: a loud crack! :-S Thankfully, little pain though...hopefully just remaining tightness than any particular problem.
Slightly disappointed with the time, but run at far from my best, evening races tired after work are always far harder work than nice morning weekend races! A well organised race (by Lunds OK) and good bit of training for the Malmomilen and the Midtjysk Bjergløb 5.4km that I've been talked into, plus a nice t-shirt prize as well :-)
PS - also a sweaty appearance on TV4's local news! (video)
(picture Erik Erikkson\Lunds OK - more here...)
A hard race held on a Thurs evening round St Hans backar in Lund, site of an old rubbish tip long since covered with large artificial hills - practically the only good sized ones nearby, as can be demonstrated by the view from the topmost - covered in grass and woodland. It's been a nice but infrequent training destination over the past few months due to injury problems.
Although the evening itself was warm (but not too warm, 12-14C) and sunny, the days preceding the race had seen heavy rain, making the course very muddy and slippery. I thus decided to run in short 5mm cross spikes, due to the minimal tarmac sections of the route - despite these being harder on the ankles than well-cushioned trainers.
The course itself was very difficult. It reminded me of the old days of West Yorkshire league cross, the Northerns and training round Bramley Fall in Leeds, except all of those had flat, recovery (football pitch) sections - this was simply unremitting hills, with little space to catch a breath. Not quite as hard I think as Xtreme Running Aarhus...
I had a less-than-ideal preparation for the race, having to start work at 6.30am and spending much of the day until 5 on my feet in the cleanroom. As such, by the time of the race start at 19.00 I was very tired - despite some caffeinated help. My aim for the race was thus to take it as training and run around 40min pace.
The first 2 laps went fairly well, run in around 9-10min\2.5k lap. It was quite tricky with the orienteering controls - I probably lost 3-5s on each, having to stop and stamp; should do some more orienteering to practice! Except for slightly missing the start 'gun', I'd led from the front and built up a lead of a few minutes. On the third lap, tiredness plus stomach cramps (something I suffer from time to time) hit. A brief 'pitstop' into the bushes was needed to set things right again - always wise to bring toilet paper on any run, even races...
Feeling a bit better, I put on a bit of gas for the remainder of the 3rd lap and took the 4th fairly gently, being around 2 min ahead - better to sacrifice a bit of time than to have the same problems and DNF.
The most worrying thing about the race was the sound made by my ankles on going up some of the hills: a loud crack! :-S Thankfully, little pain though...hopefully just remaining tightness than any particular problem.
Slightly disappointed with the time, but run at far from my best, evening races tired after work are always far harder work than nice morning weekend races! A well organised race (by Lunds OK) and good bit of training for the Malmomilen and the Midtjysk Bjergløb 5.4km that I've been talked into, plus a nice t-shirt prize as well :-)
PS - also a sweaty appearance on TV4's local news! (video)
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